''Fireflies'' is a novel by

Shiva Naipaul Shiva Naipaul (; 25 February 1945 – 13 August 1985), born Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, was an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian, Indo-Trinidadian and British novelist and journalist. Life and work Shiva Na ...

originally published in 1970. It was his first book, a comic novel set in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. In an essay in

An Unfinished Journey ''An Unfinished Journey'' is a posthumous collection of essays by Shiva Naipaul, published by Hamish and Hamilton in 1986. The foreword is written by the author's father-in-law, Douglas Stuart, who creates a short biographical sketch of the autho ...

, Naipaul described how in 1968 as a final year student at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

studying Chinese, he had been moved to write down a sentence, which proved to be the beginning of his first novel, which he then worked on for the next two years. The novel was hailed on publication, winning the Jock Campbell New Statesman Award, the

John Llewellyn Rhys Prize The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) by an author from the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and publis ...

and the

Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize The Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize was presented from 1967 until 2003 by the Royal Society of Literature for the best regional novel of the year. It is named after the novelist Winifred Holtby who was noted for her novels set in the rural scenes ...

. Writer

Martin Amis Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and ''London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir '' ...

said of ''Fireflies''Martin Amis in The War Against Cliche
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References

{{1970s-novel-stub 1970 novels Novels set in Trinidad and Tobago John Llewellyn Rhys Prize-winning works